After living on my own for two years after graduate school, I have been influenced even more by the people around me, and experienced a couple of different situations, that helped me realize that I may need to consider getting a cochlear implant.
One day, I was working with a student focusing on learning the role of an audiologist. When asking the student about their experience, they were unable to explain anything. I tried pulling their experiences out of them by asking questions such as “remember when the doctor looked inside of your ears? Remember when you sat down with ear buds inside of your ears listening to different beeps? Remember when they squirted stuff inside of your ears to make earmolds?” My student responded back “that’s never happened to me before.” This was absolutely mind blowing considering I had their audiological reports and they were wearing their own personal amplification. Clearly, they’ve gone through this procedure. I decided at that point that I wanted to develop a visual presentation for my students so they could see their own teacher going through the process of getting her hearing checked. I worked alongside an educational and a diagnostic audiologist in Fairfax County Public Schools and got my hearing tested.
An audiologist is a doctor that looks into your ears and checks your hearing. An educational audiologist goes into the schools and monitors students’ hearing and amplification, and provides support in the classrooms regarding hearing loss. Here’s a couple of slides from my PowerPoint, “Ms. Price’s trip to the Audiologist” I created for my students.
Anyways, I decided to go and get pictures taken of me getting my hearing test so I could share with my students. While I was doing this, I realized that I hadn’t had an audiological evaluation in two years, and felt there had been some slight changes in my hearing. I learned that I’ve never had any ability to hear high frequency sounds, and for that reason I never heard car horns, bicycle bells, fire alarms or smoke detectors going off. I had a long talk with the audiologist about looking into the possibilities of getting a cochlear implant. This was the first time I felt comfortable having this discussion. In the past, I have been very reluctant to do have this conversation because it seemed that each time I went to get a hearing test, the ENT doctor or audiologist tried to convince me to get a cochlear implant. I never felt that they accepted me or my hearing loss. It was more my ENT doctor than my audiologist, but I felt pressured to get one. I wasn’t ready for it. I always thought I didn’t need it because I was doing just fine with my hearing aids. However, I currently work and live in an area where there is more support with my decision making. Back in my hometown, I felt pressured and it seemed that no one accepted the fact I had a hearing loss. I was told that I needed to learn how to be in the hearing world, which made me feel that I had to change friends and my major in Deaf Education. Being near the D.C. area, I feel like there’s more people here that support me. Most of my friends, family and coworkers tell me that if I get one, then that’s great. If I don’t get one, then that’s great too! They’re not going to treat me any differently, or stop signing with me just because I use a cochlear implant. I felt confident that even though there may be people in my life that are against my decision to get a cochlear implant, they seem to support my decision and leave it as that.
In addition to that, I was working with a student who recently moved here from El Salvador, has microtia (a missing outer ear) and atresia [a missing ear canal]. As a result, she had very little language and couldn’t understand or respond to simple questions or have a basic conversation. We visited a supply closet that had a set of classroom books. While gathering some books for our reading session, my student looked around the room really confused. I was unable to understand what was going on inside of her head. A few minutes later, an instructional assistant came into the supply closet alerting us that there was a fire drill happening. I immediately felt scared and left the building with the rest of the school. I knew then that I was at risk for my own, and my students’, safety. I kept thinking to myself, what if this were not a fire drill? What if the instructional aid hadn’t come into the room to tell us what was happening? I could have been in so much trouble, considering the responsibilities involved with this job. The schools do have flashing lights in the classroom and the halls as part of the ADA accommodations, but this was a tiny supply closet.
Another time, I was cooking dinner for Peter and I. We were at his apartment. He comes into the apartment yelling for my attention, letting me know that the smoke detector was going off. I promise you, I wasn’t burning our dinner!!! I just learned that you really can’t be making steaks on a cast iron pan in an apartment with just a small vent and a fan. I had no idea that the smoke detector was going off, and I’m sure the neighbors heard it. At my apartment, I have a special smoke detector where the light flashes instead.
There have been other scenarios that terrified me, such as not realizing cars or bicyclists were coming up from behind me, or not hearing other people trying to get my attention. I’ve been in multiple situations in the parking lot just doing my own thing (errands, walking home, etc.) when people angrily pass me saying, “FINALLY you move out of my way! Can you hear the horn blowing at you?!” After telling people that I was sorry because I didn’t hear them due to my hearing loss, they usually felt bad. There were some that were just plain rude and didn’t care. While walking on trails, I’m constantly having people pull me aside because someone is running or riding their bikes trying to pass me. Often times, they’re shouting “excuse me” or ringing their bells, and I just simply don’t hear them.
I can simply imagine my Deaf friends reading this, and saying they’ve experience the same thing and is not enough to convince them for a cochlear implant (you know who you are!! hehehe) but please keep in mind that this is a personal decision for myself.
I accept everyone for who they are. If they wear hearing aids or cochlear implants, that’s great. If they don’t use any form of amplification, that’s great too! Whether they use spoken language, sign language or both, awesome!
Everything was just building up. People were pointing out that I was missing out on these environmental sounds and it scared me. I hated that I was stuck in the closet with my student who couldn’t tell me the fire alarm was going off. I hated that I couldn’t tell the smoke detector was going off and I didn’t know until the instructional assistant happened to stop by. I hated that people were getting snappy with me when I didn’t hear from them behind. I understand that there may be people out there that aren’t aware of my hearing loss or they just don’t know anything about it. As much as I advocate for myself in my community, it does become frustrating to continuously face these situations and educate people. I love educating people about hearing loss in general, but it’s a constant battle inside of me when I’m thrown into these situations. I know and understand that a cochlear implant is not going to fix everything, but it will help give me auditory access to things that I miss and have never heard of before. I will always be deaf. I will always sign with my friends and still be involved within the Deaf community. I will still be me. While being thrown into these situations, feeling the support that I felt I never got before, and thinking things through, I decided that I wanted to investigate more about getting a cochlear implant.
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